Chapter 23: The Kept Sample

Jules had asked Evan to inspect one first aid station. By nine on Wednesday morning she had also asked him to rule on three canopy weights, a scorched extension cord, and the left eye of a dragon. "Sandbags are Parks, the generator certificate is me, the eye is you," she said, ticking each against her clipboard with a pen. "And the tent row seals Friday at sundown, nobody touches anything after that, so if something's wrong it's now or it's Saturday." Kenji stood beside her holding the carved dragon head against his hip, his braced right wrist showing below the cuff. The painted left eye hung by a wire, half an inch higher than its twin. "It's decorative," Kenji said. "It's, like, eye-adjacent." "It can decoratively fall on a kid." "Can I tell people a nurse condemned it?" "Tell them to find a screwdriver." Lake Union Park was filling up…